


someone close and nothing left

by caryophyllaceae (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (ง'̀-'́)ง, Child Abuse, Death, Homophobia, Homophobic Slurs, Internalized Homophobia, John-centric, M U R D E R, M/M, Religious Content, it's never explicitly stated but there are gentle hints, this is the alpha timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:57:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/caryophyllaceae
Summary: A boy of God loses his father, discovers that he is gay, and tries to glue the broken pieces of his life back together.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> i started listening to let it grow while i was writing this but i got too into the song and had to turn it off, also it wasn't sad and didn't set the mood
> 
> instead i listened to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JiBLBOP6II) and the title is from it too. i found it in raising hope, god bless that show

On every Sunday, you play the organ for your church.

You are only thirteen. When mass ends, the adults always come up to you and tell you that you have a “real gift” for playing, and you smile at them with a mouth full of braces and tell them that your dream is to become a famous concert pianist. The smiles they give you always change after you say that, from wide grins to near-frowns, because they don’t believe that in a world like this you could ever reach a goal like that. And you don’t mind, because your dad ruffles your hair and gives you a warm fatherly smile, says, “I know you can do it, son.” Your mother, on the other hand, scoffs and turns her back. She’s never been very fond of you. You don’t really mind.

“Why don’t we go for ice cream?” Your dad always suggests, and he’s met by a huge, giddy grin from you, and a deep frown from your mother. She always tells him that it’s a ridiculous idea, that ice cream is bad for you, but he never listens to her. You get a fudge sundae.

;

Your father dies on the day you turn fourteen. You cry when you’re told the news, you cry when the church holds a ceremony for him, you cry at his funeral, and you cry when they lower is coffin into the ground. Your mother does not cry, nor does she seem sad in the slightest—you don’t think she really ever liked dad. “Your dad’s dead, and that’s that,” she tells you when you return home from the funeral. You’re wearing your church pants and the bottoms are dirty because it started snowing. “My rules are the house rules now.”

Mother’s house rules make your stomach hurt. You aren’t allowed to speak to her unless she speaks to you, you can’t go outside past six o’clock, and you have to be showered, done with your homework, and in bed by nine. You aren’t allowed to have a girlfriend until the day you move out of the house, and if you have one behind her back and she finds out, you’ll be kicked out of the house. If your dad had said something like that, it would’ve been a joke, and you both would have laughed. When mother says that, you believe her.

The first time you break one of her rules, she burns you with her cigarette. You have two red welts on your right arm, and you have to wear long sleeves to school for a week until they heal. If someone sees them, you tell them you have a rash.

And that’s that.

;

You’re still allowed to play organ at the church for Sunday mass, and it becomes the only thing you take joy in. It’s the only time you get to be away from mother, but you know she still watches you with cold hazel eyes from the pews. She always sits in the third one from the back, always with your neighbor, Miss.Serket, who you wish were your mother instead of the one you got stuck with. When mass finishes, an old woman stops you, smiles, says, “You’re good at piano. Where’d you learn?”

“I taught myself,” you say, nervously shifting your feet. “My dad used to say I have a knack for it.”

The woman’s smile widens, and she looks at you with green eyes that you swear you’ve seen somewhere before, but you can’t quite pinpoint where. She has long grey hair tied up in a bun with a few black streaks to tell you that either she dyes her hair, or it used to be black. She touches your hand with hers. “You’re a good kid, John Egbert.”

You cry.

;

On your first day of ninth grade, a boy bumps into you in the hallway and the sheet music you keep tucked in your binder falls all over the hallway floor. You expect him to walk away like nothing happened, or maybe tell you to watch where you’re going, but instead he bends down and picks your papers up, puts them back in the binder and hands them to you. “Sorry,” he says slowly, with an accent that sounds distinctly Southern. He has blonde hair and he’s wearing sunglasses inside. He’s about a foot taller than you. “Are you a freshman?”

“Yeah,” you respond, trying to hide the fact that your voice shakes.

“I’m a sophomore,” he tells you. “Name’s Dave Strider. What’s with the bruises on your shoulder there?”

The bruises on your shoulder are from mother. You broke a dish yesterday and she grabbed you by the arm, threw you to the floor, and told you to pick up the pieces with your hands. No gloves, no dustpan. You have small nicks decorating your hands, which you’ve kept hidden behind your binder all day. “I fell,” you say, your go-to excuse. “My name is John Egbert.”

He smiles, though you’d more or less call it a smirk, and your stomach twists.

;

The next Sunday, you opt out of playing the organ and go to confession instead. You spill your guts, run your mouth about how you think you may be gay and that you’re interested in a boy at your school, and the response you get is, “Resist your urges, lest you want to go to hell,” and you leave the confessional with shaky knees and tears in your eyes. Your mother slams you against a wall and chokes you until you’re clawing at her hand, gasping for air.

“You’re a faggot,” she hisses, eyes level with yours. “If I see you with one boy, you’re out of my fucking house for good. Capiche?”

You nod, lips quivering, eyes watering with tears you refuse to cry.

;

On Wednesday, Dave Strider tugs you into the boy’s bathroom when you’re on your way to lunch and asks you about the bruises on your neck. “And don’t tell me you fell, that’s bullshit,” he tacks onto the end, eyes narrowed. You try to think up a viable excuse, but your mind is completely blank, so you end up telling him that your mother did it. He tells you that you need to call child services, and you shake your head, tell him that she’d kill you. He tells you he doesn’t believe you. You start crying.

He is quick to tell you that he believes you, and then he smooths a hand through your hair and you kiss him, and your skin crawls like there are bugs living inside of you, but he kisses back and you ignore them.

;

You go to confession again on Sunday. When you say that you kissed a boy on Wednesday, you get kicked out of the confessional and told that you’re going to hell. Your mother spits in your face and punches you in the ribs. You crawl to the hospital after she falls asleep Sunday night. They tell you that your rib is broken. Your mother finds you, two hours later, in a hospital bed. She closes the door and locks it, grabs you by the throat and asks, “Did you fucking tell?”

“No, no, I promise,” you sputter out, crying now. “I wouldn’t.”

She lets you go, and you fall against the pillows. Your neck starts to bruise after an hour. She makes you lay down and cover it with the sheet.

;

When you tell Dave that your mother broke your ribs, he tells you, “You need to get out of that house,” and you cry because you know that he doesn’t mind it, not like your mother does, and tell him that you have nowhere to go. The rest of your extended family is dead; your mother is all you’ve got left. He tells you that he knows someone, and that she’d let you stay with her—you ask him how he could know that, and he tells you that she’s a good person like that.

You tell him that you’ll pack a bag and escape. You can only hope mother doesn’t find you.

;

The woman who takes you in has blonde hair and black lipstick, and you think that you know her from somewhere, but you can’t remember where. “My name is Rose Lalonde,” she tells you, as if you’re here for a job interview and not to stay with her, and you tell her that your name is John Egbert with a small smile.

;

It only takes your mother a week to find you, and when she does, she drags you out of Rose’s house by your hair and you don’t resist, because you know that would only make the inevitable worse. On April thirteenth, nineteen-ninety-nine, your mother drowns you in a river. It is your fifteenth birthday. Dave finds your body a week later, and he cries.

;

In another time, another life, John Egbert wakes up on top of a soft bed with bedsheets that smell like vanilla and laundry detergent, and on his computer screen there is red, green, and violet text, and he cries.

**Author's Note:**

> (ง'̀-'́)ง  
> come at me olivia
> 
> my writing blog is writeyourlittleheartout  
> my personal blog is dramasticallyprocrasturbating


End file.
